JACK & is a stand-up routine turned sitcom baking fiasco that mingles cakes and kitchen disasters, recipes and remedies, jokes, and goldfish to paint the portrait of a dream interrupted and resumed. The comedy of errors is structured on social codes and training from prison reentry programs to debutante balls. The performance considers re-entry to society after prison, focusing not the time one has served but the measure of one’s dreaming that is given to the state.

“Jack” works the night shift at an industrial bakery. He returns home to bake a cake for his wife “Jill”; “Jack” ends up whirling through a dance—part dream, part ritual—re-entering his own internal life. The performance draws on aspirational class stories like those in The Honeymooners and Amos & Andy; the paintings of Agnes Martin, Ellen Gallagher and Ruth Azawa; tigers in Harlem; real and imagined entering society ceremonies like Cotillion balls; and markers of transition from John Canoe traditions, to the mirroring and mimicry found in African American dance pageantry of the late nineteenth Century.

Combining a Dr. Strangelove-inspired performance with a daring forum for public conversation, Unexploded Ordnances (UXO) explores aging, anxiety, hidden desires, and how to look forward when the future is uncertain. Adopting the characters of a bombastic general and an ineffectual president, Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver of the performance troupe Split Britches lace this interactive piece with playful urgency and lethargy, to encourage discussion about the political landscape. In the “Situation Room,” twelve audience members are invited to become a Council of Elders to discuss the global issues of the day, as the company weaves in satirical insights and humour. The two pioneering theatre-makers see undisturbed ordnances as a metaphor for the disregarded potential in elders, and hope to uncover buried resources in us all.

Founded in New York in 1980 with Deb Margolin, Split Britches continues with the duo and solo work of Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw which spans satirical, gender-bending performance, methods for public engagement, videography, digital and print media, explorations of aging and well-being, and iconic lesbian-feminist theatre.

US WEST COAST PREMIERE ALBUM is a solo performance that unites text, song, and dance inside of the content of an album—a picture album, a song album, an autobiographical album, a herstorical album—and the work finds ways to be an archive, or altar, for Valencia’s body. Through factual, humorous, and grave observations, a frame of self-identification is established and charged with the task to preserve and perform a self herstory as an album in image and song. Valencia’s relationship to urbanity, vampires, love, and marginality arise with equal importance as she orbits the primary curiosity: Who will write herstory? ALBUM starts this process—so the author of Valencia’s herstory can have good notes.

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welcome to PAIA-pdx

Welcome to the Performing Arts Interpreting Alliance, the place to find qualified and reliable interpreters for your performance events. In addition to coordination and interpreting services, Performing Arts Interpreting Alliance also provides training and mentoring opportunities for both new interpreters and experienced interpreters new to theatrical and performance settings.

The Performing Arts Interpreting Alliance also supports Deaf performers and Deaf theater. Our goal is to work in collaboration with Deaf performance artists and the community to provide not only accessible theater, but also to support and promote signed theater.

about me

Creative Adventurer: I'm a writer who can often be found in cafes at odd hours with a latte and a laptop, or with pen and paper in the car between gigs. I'm a sign language interpreter whose passion is performance interpreting, which integrates years of theatrical experience, creativity, and interpreting. I am also a writing facilitator and peer editor, performance interpreting mentor, and performance & literary event interpreting coordinator.
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